Fat Buddha

So I took the boys to the Vietnamese restaurant. Junior is by nature not a very adventurous eater, to the point of whitebread asceticism. There is one exception: the wife and I broke them early to Vietnamese restaurants in California, before Junior’s prejudices set in. In Junior’s mind, fish and peanut  sauce, oxtail soup, and fresh cilantro get a dispensation as honorary bland, up there with fishsticks. If he had never eaten Pho, I’m sure I could never convince him to try it now. (I wish I had taken him to Sushi and Thai early on, too, but I’ll take what I can get). Smiley is entirely another story, he’ll put anything in his mouth at least once. One of these years, when he’s old enough to get travel immunizations he and I will be found sampling insects from a food cart in Borneo, or beef heart anticuchos in Peru, or yak milk tea somewhere. You and I mister, I keep telling him, are going places and eating things.

     At the restaurant beside the TV blasting Vietnamese game shows is a little de rigeur Buddha shrine. It’s the laughing one with the fat belly. Smiley was asking about him, and I was thwarted because I always thought Gautama was a thin ascetic. So when we got home, shirts streaked with hoisin and nam chuoc suace, we did a quick web search.  Apparently this is not the true Buddha but rather a bodhisattva, a saintly, almost-enlightened being. The Fat Buddha, instead of disappearing in a puff of enlightenment, chose to remain behind to teach other people how to acheive the true path. And to keep enjoying a few earthly tacos. 

  By the way: goi cuon (cold spring rolls) are only 1 point!

Lunch Out with the Boys

 In the African heat of mid July, I took the boys out to the grandmother who cuts their hair, a loud, spastic, Catholic lady with multiple sclerosis, and who must have been a peach when she was about 20. She had screwed up her appointment schedule, so she only had 25 minutes to clip three heads. She nicked Junior twice. Fortunately, he only complained superficially, not in a deep way, like when he gets injections. It’s hard for her to get bangs straight these days, but she did ok. I keep going back because she loves the kids, and because she only charges eight bucks. And she represents, at least to me, a disappearing small-town Pennsylvania culture. Her other customers are a steady stream of WWII vets with the loping vowels of rural Lancaster County.

    Afterwards, we stopped for lunch. An experiment: Subway, where I can get a 6 point sandwich. That was fine. Of course, I ate the rest of the chips, foraged Junior’s tuna salad wrap leftovers, and watched dejectedly as Smiley finished his meatball sub. I figure I consumed what, maybe 12 points. Salad for dinner again, I suppose. I need to get on the bike again.